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Hmmm, this is actually going to be a bigger bite to those who SOLD things using this system. As Blizzard will probably just pass the problem on they are only out by the commision the seller will be the one losing the major percentage.

The SELLER is the one who did the Bait and Switch as they knew or should have known in advance that what they were selling was not goint to retain its value.

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These arguments can go back and forth into eternity, but the main thing any case will hinge on is how well the lawyers play it out in court. There is no such thing as a perfect case. Hell, in this day and age, you could be caught doing the crime on film and still walk away, or you could be in another country and still get convicted of a crime you did not commit.
So.. what will Blizzard do? Whatever is most cost effective to them. Personally, I hope they miscalculate and go out of business, but that's just me.

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Whether or not it's a legally binding contract (it is) doesn't matter as much as people think. Breaking the EULA is a matter than can indeed end up in court, but it's tried as a civil matter; i.e., you can be sued, not arrested. What is the likelihood Blizz is going to pull everyone who issues charge-backs, across the country (if not the globe) into court? It's not going to happen. Even with the money they'd have to eat, that's still far less than it would cost them to hire the many lawyers that would take. The most they could do is go after one of the largest culprits in effort to make an example of them, but that would tarnish their image and cause more harm than good.

I don't know WHAT Blizz will do to fight back against this, if anything at all beyond simple bannings, but chances are the only thing people are actually sacrificing here is their ability to play another online Blizz product with a credit card in their name.

EDIT: Here's a couple of useful links, if anyone actually cares enough to read. I suspect if they did, these kinds of arguments would have never started in the first place, but at least I can say I tried. The second isn't official, but he's correct for the most part:

"What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered? It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the real-money auction house."

Its not "law", but it is their terms that you agreed to...

I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

/sigh...

The EULA can't change federal, state or local laws. There are laws which cover a variety of odd things which might apply. People need to understand the EULA NEVER TRUMPS LAW. .

Internet lawyers need to understand an EULA is written by a real lawyer.

Doesn't matter if Obama wrote it himself, an EULA is not a legal document and won't hold up in court. An EULA is an agreement that the Company sets stating they own the property and can do with it what they want.

Lol read the article. It was a disagreement between them and the company, the company stating that since they spent the time in game, the items / characters should be yours. EULAs are directly against this, this is what EULAs are for. Not about chargebacks over RMT.

Lol, really? You do see above where the Eula specifically covers this? Dd you see that? These people are fucked. Like I said. They ecieved what they paid for at the time of the transaction.

Eula means shit.

Goverment's make laws and judges rule all the time against unsavoury business practices.

The whole thing is a big grey area and you can bet that new laws and regulations will be made in the near future as this type of money for nothing business grows by leaps and bounds.

"If you make an ass out of yourself, there will always be someone to ride you." - Bruce Lee

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Originally posted by Aori

Against the mass chargeback attempts going on? I mean I thought this might happen and quite honestly I don't know how the blizzard legal team missed it. They should have never ever changed the values on an item. They really should have went the diminishing returns approach.

Most CC companies are calling this bait and switch and are behind the consumer on this. I even called my own just to check it out, Capitalone and they have had several complaints considering the situation and agree with bait and switch.

Either way I wonder how they will act on this with alot of CC companies agreeing to chargebacks.. alot of banned accounts? Then we'll see chargebacks on diablo 3?

"What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered? It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the real-money auction house."

Its not "law", but it is their terms that you agreed to...

I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

/sigh...

The EULA can't change federal, state or local laws. There are laws which cover a variety of odd things which might apply. People need to understand the EULA NEVER TRUMPS LAW. .

People also need to understand that if you agree to an EULA...things that you agreed to might actually happen...

So far everyone butthurt over this keeps bringing up "EULA doesnt trump the LAW"..but nobody has been able to say which law its "trying" to trump...

Probably the non existent law that would let Blizzard go after people who file chargebacks. Blizzard can ban accounts in this situation, nothing more.

Incorrect again. When you agree to the purchase, you agree to pay the money. If you received the item as per the description of the sale, all s well. You can't take your money back because the item changed later. LET THE BUYER BEWARE. especially since the exact instance of change is outlined in the Eula. If you take the money you agreed to pay back after the transaction, bliz can pursue per the purchase agreement.

LOL WHAT?

First of all, EULAS mean shit, i can agree in a contract that you can set fire on my house and rape my family if you do you will still go to jail.

Second, i cant speak for the law in the US, but in my country i can give up ANYTHING i bought online for 7 days without giving any reason whatsoever.

So if i want i can buy 10 million dollars worth of Diablo 3 items today, and tomorrow i can call my bank and THEY WILL HAVE TO give every cent back to me no matter how many EULAS i clicked "agreed".

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I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

To everyone who says: eula is not law!!!

Yeah, the poster of above quote knows, he even said it himself....

His question remains valid. Why click agree when you don't?

The answer is "didn't read it" in the overwhelming majority of cases, of course. Hence why they're defeatable contracts...

Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

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I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

To everyone who says: eula is not law!!!

Yeah, the poster of above quote knows, he even said it himself....

His question remains valid. Why click agree when you don't?

The answer is "didn't read it" in the overwhelming majority of cases, of course. Hence why they're defeatable contracts...

LOLWUT? By clicking that you read and accept the terms you are accepting the terms whether you actually read it or not. As long as the terms don't take away your legal rights as a consumer you are stuck to those rules.

I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

To everyone who says: eula is not law!!!

Yeah, the poster of above quote knows, he even said it himself....

His question remains valid. Why click agree when you don't?

The answer is "didn't read it" in the overwhelming majority of cases, of course. Hence why they're defeatable contracts...

LOLWUT? By clicking that you read and accept the terms you are accepting the terms whether you actually read it or not. As long as the terms don't take away your legal rights as a consumer you are stuck to those rules.

That won't stop a class-action suit, those "agreements" are very questionable on many levels.

BTW, Blizztard deserves everything they get from this debacle.

"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky

"What happens if there is a patch and the item I purchased is altered? It's important for us to ensure that Diablo III remains balanced and fun for years after launch. To that end, it may be necessary to change stats or alter abilities of items from time to time. It’s very important to note that Blizzard will not be providing refunds or making other accommodations if a purchased item is later altered in a patch. Given this, it's up to players to determine whether they're comfortable purchasing items in the real-money auction house."

Its not "law", but it is their terms that you agreed to...

I ask you all....why did you click "i agree" and proceed to buy items if you don't actually agree with it?

/sigh...

The EULA can't change federal, state or local laws. There are laws which cover a variety of odd things which might apply. People need to understand the EULA NEVER TRUMPS LAW. .

People also need to understand that if you agree to an EULA...things that you agreed to might actually happen...

So far everyone butthurt over this keeps bringing up "EULA doesnt trump the LAW"..but nobody has been able to say which law its "trying" to trump...

We understand. You have to understand that LAW is higher than a lowly EULA. There are many cases of using services (such as ski resorts) where tickets have statements about buying the ticket (Like EULA) means the resort isn't liable for damages. Guess what, in a lawsuit, it has minimal effect.

just 3 sites that give alittle more info on EULA. And to the little reading i did so far some Courts go for it and some dont.

As stated, it depends on how well the lawyer argues. Keep in mind, while specialized lawyers usually win more, even cheapo attorneys are shrwed enough to come up with an underdog win here and there. The supreme court has not yet ruled on it, but at the rate Diablo 3 is going, Blizzard v "Some Guy" might be that landmark case!

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Actually, I did examine the EULA according to Italian Law as people here experienced major issues with D3 (error 37, predominantly). I wanted to file a class action to begin with. A the beginning of June 2012, I had an informal meeting with the IP court, which was already aware of the D3 issues back (…in Italy, and that's says it all).

Anyway, the servers seem running now, therefore a class action would be a total failure, especially in Italy where we do not have punitive damages.

However, most of the EULA are void/voidable as we have mandatory provision in Europe. So if you are from Europe, I think that any European Lawyer should be able to confirm this quite easily. In fact, the part of Italian law governing this matter is just a wrap-up of many EU directives. I am pretty sure that other EU members should have similar pieces of legislation.

On my side, I commented each section of the EULA with some notes (in Italian, sadly). In fact, my Italian friends were so disapponited with D3 at the beginning that I became curious about it.

It would be a dream to trump the EULA in front of our domestic authority. I will try that this summer if I have the time.

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I do think it's lame that people may have bought items without knowing about the nerf. I'm not sure I would see it as big of a deal if they kept the stats but implemented diminishing returns.

See that's the thing, they also lowered the type quality and frequency of drops last patch as well, which peeved off my friends and i, even in groups it was almost impossible to get anything worth while and then all the bosses in normal and infernal suddenly didn't drop yellows anymore. Why, all to try to keep the gold farmers are bay, well we saw how well that went, they released all their high end items anyway on RMAH launch day completely flooding the market and lowering the prices to $1-5 each so it didn't work anyway, but they sure did make the game more "fun" for the rest of us huh.

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I still don't understand why people would pay real cash for some items in a "SINGLE" player game?! It is not even a MMORPG! Also, for Blizzard to nerf a single player game is just crazy. It is bad enough to force players play single player game online... All in all, this just leaves bad taste in general. To be honest, there are hacks already to allow players to play D3 without login to B.net. Those who got banned can just play those hacked games. A single player game should be allowed without internet connection isn't it? This will certainly hurt Blizzard in the long run with more people start to play on private server via hacked game client.

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OK so... what I don't understand? Why is every making a big deal of changes made during an update to an item purchased by a player. I mean... You never see MMO players screaming every time a company makes updates that changes content in an MMO that they pay for (please don't bring up SWG). But seriously, in MMOs, updates constantly change the game that people pay monthly fees for.

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Originally posted by Hituro

OK so... what I don't understand? Why is every making a big deal of changes made during an update to an item purchased by a player. I mean... You never see MMO players screaming every time a company makes updates that changes content in an MMO that they pay for (please don't bring up SWG). But seriously, in MMOs, updates constantly change the game that people pay monthly fees for.

The problem is that D3 is not a MMORPG. Nerfs just doesn't mix well with item nerfs at cost of real money to obtain. People should understand that game items in a none mmorp game means little to nothing at all. There is no show off factor or raid gear scores in D3, so why pay real cash for those items?